In Haiti, Every Sickness, Every Death is Unnatural
I was raised in a country where every sickness and every death is believed to be caused by some evil spirit. As a result, when people get sick, instead of seeking medical assistance, they go to the “Voodoo Priest’ to seek help.
However, there is also this other group, the church goers, who rely solely on their faith to find healing. They fail to realize that believing in God does not dismiss the responsibility of seeking medical assistance when the need arises. Although, in some instances, God intervenes and provides healing to people who cry out to Him, people still need to do their part in doing what they need to do.
There are some people who believe in the efficacy of natural remedy. These people, whenever they are sick, their natural tendency is to take a dose of tee of some sort. The danger in this practice is that without a diagnostic, how can you appropriately take the right medicine? I believe that one of the reasons why people try natural remedies as their first option, sometimes as their only option, is because most people in Haiti cannot afford the care of healthcare costs.
Not too long ago, there was a message on my voice mail from an old friend saying that her granddaughter got killed in Haiti. The only thing that I could think of as I was listening to her message was that her granddaughter got shut. However, when I got to speak to her, she explained to me that the child was sick with a fever for three days and when she was taken to the hospital, she died. Her whole explanation was that someone was the cause of the child’s death, somebody who probably doesn’t like her son, the child’s father. She added, “If they had called me to inform me of the child’s condition, I would have prayed, and the child would not have died.
We can safely conclude that People’s economic, social, gender, religious, status play a major role on how they see health and health care communications
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As a health care communicator, how would you approach the issue, i.e. the intersection of strongly-held faith and medical expertise? At what point does a patient's reliance on faith become something a health care professional simply accepts instead of arguing against?
ReplyDeleteI would probably make the patient understand that he or she has a role to play in order to get his or her health back without removing the importance that faith plays in patients'recovery.
ReplyDeleteI think if a doctor observes that his or her patient's health is progressing despite of previous diagnostic that there is no chance for recovery; I guess as a doctor,I will have no choice but to accept that the patient's faith has made him or her well.